Filter Homepage and Login Page effect "Visitor" co

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boxcarwilli
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Filter Homepage and Login Page effect "Visitor" co

Post by boxcarwilli »

I have an Intranet, and, my reports show a massive increase in Visitors, primirialy due to their browsers having a default start page of the Intranet.

So, what Im asking is, Im filtering out the homepage and login page from the Visitor count. By doing so, will the Visitor count still reflect acuratly those that had a session of more than just those two pages? See #'s below. Also, can this theory be applied to HITS for a time report as well?


NOTE: These numbers below for months of 3-5 are when the start page setting hadnt been implemented, so does that mean many are just logging in and closing the site? Thats why im curious as to if sessions are being counted appropriatly with the fitler in place.

VISITORS BY MONTH (no filter)
3/1/2004 2607
4/1/2004 4228
5/1/2004 4603
6/1/2004 4506
7/1/2004 6659
8/1/2004 9906
9/1/2004 12067
10/1/2004 43617

VISITORS BY MONTH (filter)
3/1/2004 452
4/1/2004 671
5/1/2004 587
6/1/2004 620
7/1/2004 696
8/1/2004 728
9/1/2004 891
10/1/2004 1755

boxcarwilli
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by boxcarwilli »

HELLO??? Anybody home????

Abacre
Site Admin
Posts: 1223
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by Abacre »

Hi,

We received your question. Currently I am writing a detailed and clear
answer on it with some background testing on real data. Have a little
patience.
Kind regards,
Abacre Limited
http://www.abacre.com
support@abacre.com

Abacre
Site Admin
Posts: 1223
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by Abacre »

So the answers on your questions.

Suppose the default page of your site is:
/default.htm
and login page is:
/login.htm

So when user starts his Internet Explorer the following sequence
automatically occurs:
/default.htm
/login.htm

In fact if the user does not continue to visit the site all stats is mixed.

So the formulation of the task: avoid from time report users with
length of visit equals to 2 pages.
It means that in order to visit some pages of the site the user should
visit at least 2 pages (more than 2 pages).

For example:
/default.htm
/login.htm
/news.htm
/about.htm

If you add the filter:
href equals /login.htm
It will eliminate all the visits. Because /login.htm should present in
all visits.

In order to carefully solve the task we developed new parameter:
visit_length

So for you time report: Visitors by week (or day, month)
add new filter condition:
visit_length not_equals 2

you may also add:
visit_length not_equals 1

Please download the latest version of the program:
http://www.abacre.com/download/alaexe.zip

This is only updated EXE file. You need to extract an executable file from
zip archive into folder where the program is installed. So you will
replace old executable file by this new one.

The next question: how to filter page hits?
In fact it's more difficult. In internal calculation routine if
parameter is requests (or hits, host) it simply counts matching lines
in log file without forming visitor paths (sequence of visited pages).
So for now visit_length will not work for page hits report. It only
works when parameter is visitor.
We will think how can we handle it. For now use Visitors by week
report.
Kind regards,
Abacre Limited
http://www.abacre.com
support@abacre.com

boxcarwilli
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by boxcarwilli »

WOW. Thanks for the reply and the addition to the program. I will set all this up and let you know my results. Thanks again.

boxcarwilli
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by boxcarwilli »

Ok, getting closer. Except, from my logs emailed to you (a good repeatable section of those that I would like to filter), Im not sure if a path = "/" is being counted as a "visit_length" to be filtered?

VISITS BY MONTH

NO FILTER
3/1/2004 2607
4/1/2004 4228
5/1/2004 4603
6/1/2004 4506
7/1/2004 6659
8/1/2004 9906
9/1/2004 11649
10/1/2004 22232


FILTER
visit_length != 1
visit_length != 2
3/1/2004 1788
4/1/2004 2787
5/1/2004 3028
6/1/2004 3075
7/1/2004 3634
8/1/2004 4303
9/1/2004 5155
10/1/2004 7092


FILTER
visit_length != 2
3/1/2004 2468
4/1/2004 4005
5/1/2004 4390
6/1/2004 4267
7/1/2004 6154
8/1/2004 8794
9/1/2004 10221
10/1/2004 18845


Now, for the follow test log file, with a filter of 2, I still get all the visits being counted, with a filter of 1 none of the visits get counted instead of a single visit getting counted (one vist in the log was more than 2 pages), Im totally confused. I emailed this to you....

Abacre
Site Admin
Posts: 1223
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by Abacre »

I received your log file. I am currently working with it.
Kind regards,
Abacre Limited
http://www.abacre.com
support@abacre.com

boxcarwilli
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by boxcarwilli »

Some additional info, is three runs from my full logs of visit_lenght filter of 2, 1, and 1&2.



FILTER = 2
3/1/2004 2350
4/1/2004 3825
5/1/2004 4183
6/1/2004 4036
7/1/2004 5919
8/1/2004 8539
9/1/2004 9873
10/1/2004 18522


FILTER = 1
3/1/2004 1927
4/1/2004 3010
5/1/2004 3241
6/1/2004 3314
7/1/2004 4139
8/1/2004 5415
9/1/2004 6583
10/1/2004 10479


FILTER = 2 & 1
3/1/2004 1788
4/1/2004 2787
5/1/2004 3028
6/1/2004 3075
7/1/2004 3634
8/1/2004 4303
9/1/2004 5155
10/1/2004 7092

Abacre
Site Admin
Posts: 1223
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by Abacre »

boxcarwilli wrote:Ok, getting closer. Except, from my logs emailed to you (a good repeatable section of those that I would like to filter), Im not sure if a path = "/" is being counted as a "visit_length" to be filtered?

You are right. In fact in new version of ALA we upgraded our IsPage
procedure (which worked fine before the upgrade) and now it's an issue that / is not counted as web page.
We are correcting it now and doing further tests on your log file.
Kind regards,
Abacre Limited
http://www.abacre.com
support@abacre.com

Abacre
Site Admin
Posts: 1223
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:32 pm

Post by Abacre »

The issue was corrected. Please download the latest version from the
following location:
http://www.abacre.com/download/alaexe.zip
Kind regards,
Abacre Limited
http://www.abacre.com
support@abacre.com

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